Wednesday, 29 May 2013

The Abominable Snowmen
is as much of a mystery as the eponymous creations; created by Mervyn
Haisman and Henry Lincoln, the creations are great, lumbering creatures, with
wonderfully soft fur and horrifically grotesque claws. They do not speak, or make any noise aside
from the incessant beeping given off by the control units. They are robots, artificially created in the 1930s
by something called the Great Intelligence, and proved so popular that they
returned to the series 3 serials later in The
Web of Fear, and were due to return again until Haisman and Lincoln fell
out with the production team over the dire The
Dominators. Tragically, only one
episode of this serial exists, meaning that we are left only with audio and
telesnaps. Having said that, though, the
serial is an incredibly strong one, and works in this format regardless.

The serial starts with what sounds to be a haunting and
moody moment, grittily shot (based on the telesnaps) as a huge lumbering shadow
falls across the ground, a rifle is wrenched away and twisted into so much
scrap metal, and a gigantic footprint is discovered. Unlike Marco
Polo, however, when there was a logical explanation for this print – the
sun melts the edges of a normal footprint, making it seem to grow, don’t you
know? – here the print is that of the infamous Yeti, who are roaming the
mountains of Tibet and wreaking havoc, despite their shyness and allegedly
pacifistic nature.

Cutting to the TARDIS crew, it is a delight to watch the
passion and enthusiasm in the crew here; the banter flows nicely, as the group
argue about the correct geographical positioning of Tibet, and the Doctor’s
secretive nature is again to the fore as he searches for the holy Ghanta, a
mystical bell which needs to be returned to the Monastery. As he digs out the now iconic fur jacket and
heads off, leaving Jamie and Victoria rifling through chests of objects and
clothes, there is a wonderful playfulness to their conversations, with Jamie
still showing care and concern for his companions. Hines sells the conviction perfectly – as
Troughton returns, having found the footprint, he can read him like a book, but
the Doctor’s insistence that he goes alone troubles Jamie no end. As in the last two serials, the proactive
nature of Victoria’s character continues to surprise me; Watling has always
been undervalued, by myself included, and seeing her here, using her cunning to
trick Jamie into leaving the safety of the TARDIS because she is bored, is
wonderful.

Once the Doctor makes it to the monastery, though, things
quickly spiral out of control. The
danger is palpable in the scenes set within the monastery, and this is sold no
end by the excellent performances of all involved. As Professor Travers, the paranoia and fear
is dripping from Jack Watling’s performance, and the speed with which he
accuses the Doctor of murder and sabotage is telling; when we later hear that it is because he
thinks the Doctor is a journalist, it makes the entire thing seem even more
ridiculous – the thought that anyone would go to such lengths “for the sake of
a cheap headline” is rather preposterous, even by today’s standards with the
Leveson enquiry. As Khrisong, Norman
Jones is wonderfully chilling, with his shifting eyes and murmured threats in
hushed tones. Indeed, the only
inconsistency in the entire serial, as far as I’m concerned, is in the racial
stereotyping some of the actors assume; several speaking in perfect RP English
accents, crisp and clean dialogue which is sharp and well-delivered. Others, though, decide that, because they are
playing Tibetan monks, they need to assume faux Asian voices, blurring some of
the diction in a mockery of Asian speech patterns. It runs the risk of becoming offensive – but
fortunately just stops short of being so.

Episode 2 thankfully exists, so we are given the chance to
see the Yetis in all of their glory – the scenes with Jamie and Victoria in the
cave are wonderfully tense, and the lumbering creatures – whilst painfully and
undeniably cute – pursuing them across the hillside is marvellous. They finally run straight into Travers as he
wanders around the hillside. Travers
must be an absolutely awful explorer, mind; he says that for twenty years, he
has been searching for the Yeti, and yet in about twenty minutes, the Doctor’s
companions have been chased by them, and they have discovered their cave. Entirely by accident.

The Doctor, meanwhile, is having a rough time; accused of
not only the murder of Travers’ assistant, he is being held responsible for the
troubles which have befallen the monks.
Thonmi, a patient and sensible young Monk played by David Spenser, is
sent to retrieve the Doctor from the dank cell in which he has been locked up,
where he tries to show him the holy Ghanta, stored under his mattress. It turns out that Khrisong and his Warrior
Monks have decided to place the Doctor in a trap to prove his culpability; he
is strapped to the front gates of the monastery. Troughton is, as always, magnificent to
watch, and his facial features and twitches are wonderful to behold as he dangles
from the rope.

At the same time, Thonmi takes the Ghanta to the Master of
the monastery – incidentally, the second mention of “the Master” in the last 3
serials – Padmasambhava, who we are never able to see. Instead, his whispered tones chillingly
pervade the air, as his voice seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at
once. Songsten, the Abbot of the
monastery, is also present, brainwashed by Padmasambhava and forced to follow
his orders. The return of the Ghanta is
evidence enough for the monks to free the Doctor, just in time as the Yetis
appear over the brow of the hill, in pursuit of Jamie and Victoria, with
Travers in tow. While Thonmi leaves to
set the Doctor free, we hear, for the first time, the schizophrenic tones of
Padmasambhava, as he mutters about the protection of the Doctor, and, at the
same time, the dangers facing their “great plan” if the Doctor learns of their
plans.

The episode ends with a Yeti becoming captured, thanks to
Jamie’s plan to lure it into a net, and the Doctor analysing it, discovering
that not only is it a robot, but the control sphere – like one of the
glittering metal balls found in the cave by Jamie and Victoria – is missing,
having fallen out when the Yeti was hauled upwards outside the gates. Meanwhile, the sphere, stuck in wet mud, is
beeping furiously, and the one brought into the monastery by Jamie begins to
beep in response, eerily rolling along with a mind of its own.

It is a shame, really, that episode 2 is the only episode
that exists from this serial, as, by the sounds of things, the drama and
tension really pick up from episode 3 onwards.
Episode 1 was decidedly slow, revelling in the superb location shooting
and building very slowly. Meanwhile,
episode 2 was fairly formulaic, a typical run-around, with some standard
setup. Episode 3, however, really ramps
it up, and the proverbial stuff hits the fan; the story explodes into action,
there are ethical conversations about science versus religion, the Master’s
plans become clearer, Victoria shows a great deal of cunning (as does Travers!)
and the Doctor gets some great lines.
It’s all go!

The strongest moments in the third episode are those with
Padmasambhava and Songsten, the Abbot, who is brainwashed into believing he is
working for the greater good. As
Padmasambhava, Wolfe Morris is absolutely superb – the differences between the
vocal inflections of the two voices are incredible, and it never becomes
confusing, only listening to the soundtrack, to be able to differentiate who is
who – which is exactly as it should be.

The character I feel particularly sorry for is Rapalchan –
who is, despite rumours, not played
by Harold Pinter under an equity guise. The
poor man is tricked and brainwashed left, right and centre; firstly by Travers,
who manages to persuade him that he has been granted permission to leave, and
then by the Abbot Songsten, who is similarly brainwashed, and is being forced
to leave monastery to place a vital piece of equipment in the cave for the
Great Intelligence.

In episode four, the tension continues to ramp up as the
escaped Travers, spying on the Yeti, also spots the brainwashed Abbot, and
follows him up to the caves he has been seeking all these years. Whilst these Yeti are evidently active, there
is meanwhile a ridiculous scene wherein Jamie and the Doctor discover inactive
Yetis guarding the TARDIS. It seems
ludicrous the Great Intelligence should go to the trouble of providing guards
whilst its evil machinations unfold, yet fail to turn them on. Still, off they are, and after a humorous
scene to discover this fact – with a terrified Jamie hiding as the Doctor
throws a rock at the inanimate lumbering behemoth – the Doctor and Jamie are able to gain entrance
to the ship to find the equipment they need.
This equipment includes a screwdriver – sadly, still not one of the
sonic variety, which is still almost half a season away.

Travers, meanwhile, is having less success as he spies upon
the Yeti spheres, and watches as the pyramid cracks open, before spewing foam
out endlessly. To some extent, rather
than the season of Base Under Siege adventures which Season 5 is known for, we
should consider this the season of Foam.
Seriously, the amount of foam used in the show at this juncture is
ridiculous – from the foam-spewing chest unit in The Tomb of the Cybermen to the stuff being vomited out of the
spheres and engulfing the mountain, through to the big bad foam of Fury From the Deep and the sprayed foam
of The Web of Fear, it seems like
everyone’s at it.

The activation of the pyramid in Travers’ cave, meanwhile,
leads to a wonderfully tense moment between Jamie and the previously dormant
Yeti – having removed the panel to reveal the sphere, the Doctor has removed
it, but it suddenly gets activated, and so through some wonderful sounding mime
work, the sphere desperately tries to reinsert itself, and only through Jamie’s
quick reactions does he manages to squeeze a rock into the chest cavity,
blocking the entrance for the sphere itself.
Similarly proactive is Victoria, as she continues to seek out the truth
and look beyond the facade of the monastery, actively questioning what others
seem to take for granted.

Deborah Watling’s portrayal of Victoria in this episode in
particular is fascinating, and the way in which she questions Thonmi, despite
his honesty and nobility, is very moving; a man so capable of unabashed faith
takes the concept of time travel utterly in his stride, and it speaks volumes
of the peaceful and calming nature of Buddhism, as his acceptance that “Our
master, Padmasambhava, can free himself from his earthly body” likens the
powers of time travel with those of the master of the monastery and his astral
projections. What the show does cleverly
here, though, is that rather than appearing preachy about the virtues of the
religion, instead it simply uses the power of belief as a way of justifying
such implausible ideas as time travel.

Meanwhile, Khrisong is also questioning what he has always
been told and tries to get to the bottom of the mysteries of the Abbot and the
Master; the episode ends with him supporting Jamie and the Doctor, and placing
his faith in them instead of his beliefs.
At the same time, Padmasambhava and Songsten are busy planning to escape
the monastery, and again Morris’ delivery sells the scene, as his languishing
voice speaks of “The strangers?” in a bored and tiresome tone. The final cliffhanger, though, as we finally
see the face of Padmasambhava finally revealed as he beckons Victoria ever
nearer is horrific, and his suggestion that she has “no alternative” is equally
chilling.

Episode 5 is finally one of high-tension payoff, as the
proverbial hits the fan in the biggest way; as Padmasambhava moves pieces
continuously on the chess board, and Victoria is cast under a trance and
similarly possessed, the Yeti attack, and rain destruction down on the
building. Meanwhile, Travers is raving
about a “shadow on (his) mind” and the Doctor and Jamie, with the assistance of
Thonmi, deal with the attack on them.
Rinchen is killed in the destruction, and the monks are forced to leave
the safety of their sanctum.

Rinchen and Sapan are two fascinating characters, played by
David Grey and Raymond Llewellyn respectively, and they have had some wonderful
scenes earlier in the serial. In fact,
one of the most interesting moments of the entire serial occurred in episode 3,
when the pair created their spirit trap around the immobilised Yeti. The debate about the power of faith is poignant
and heartfelt, and Rinchen’s character in particular is given more room to grow
than we expect of a character with only some 30 lines throughout an entire
serial; how fitting, then, that he should come to an end not as a direct result
of the Yetis themselves, but instead crushed to death under a falling statue of
Buddha. It is a stark symbol that though
the power of prayer can provide comfort at times, ultimately it is equally
capable of death and destruction.

The theme of possession and brainwashing has never been as
truly horrifying as it is presented here.
When Dodo was hypnotised back in The
War Machines, she was carted off to the countryside to recover and never
heard from again. Ben was brainwashed in
The Macra Terror but managed to fight
it eventually, seeing his friendship as more important than the intentions of
the Macra. Polly was cloned by The Faceless Ones and as such lived out
her final episodes before her departure as another, far less likeable,
character. Here, though, the
performances are helped by such a strong script, and Wolfe Morris is
particularly magnificent, clearly loathing every second of his prolonged
existence. The reveal of him, crumbling
and decaying in a chair, barely holding onto any dignity as he ages
uncontrollably in front of us, is truly horrific. The moment that he calls for his “old friend”
is heart-wrenching, although as an audience we can feel slightly cheated that
seeing him die before our eyes after their reconciliation, only to be revived
as soon as their back is turned, is slightly unfair. It is an idea current show-runner Steven
Moffat will steal in some 45 years when the Great Intelligence returns to the
rebooted show and Richard E Grant’s Dr Simeon is killed and yet returns like a
puppet on a string for the Great Intelligence to control.

Similarly magnificent is that when Padmasambhava speaks
through Victoria, Watling is truly terrific – she convinces utterly, and the
idea that she can do little other than repeat the same instructions is
awful. It is one of the most unnerving
moments in the show to date, as Troughton settles down next to Victoria to try
to break her conditioning, and his suggestion that “She’ll go out of her mind”
if he probes too deeply into her subconscious is terrifying. Never before has someone hypnotised seemed so
fragile, as she repeatedly begs the Doctor and Jamie to “take (her) away”. Still, this being Troughton and Hines, there’s
still time for a moment of visual humour, as Jamie begins to doze off whilst
the Doctor hypnotises Victoria to remove the “implanted fear”.

As Travers, Jack Watling gets a magnificent moment to shine
at the end of this fifth episode, though, as he shows tremendous courage and
faces his fears, returning up the hillside to the cave with the Doctor before
telling his story again, dealing with his terror; all the while, the corporeal
form of the Great Intelligence continues to grow and grow, bulging out through
the mouth of the cave and flowing down the hill. The sixth episode finally sees the loose plot
threads tied up as the Doctor discovers that Songsten is the missing link in
the story, thanks to Travers’ recollection that it was he who took the pyramid
into the cave.

In episode 6, we also see the death of Khrisong, a man who
has been so dutifully honourable and true to his cause – it is a tragic moment,
made all the more poignant since it is his master, the Abbot Songsten, who
kills him, stabbing him in the back as he is about to enter the Inner Sanctum
and face the true Master of the Monastery.
He gets a final noble moment with his people, and is able to pass on
word that Songsten, whilst physically responsible, is not to blame due to the
trance he is in. Meanwhile, the struggle
for control between Padmasambhava and the Great Intelligence is gut-wrenching,
as Morris manages through a two-toned delivery to really sell the idea that the
holy man simply wants death, as he begs that the Intelligence “Release me!” The hoarse and whispered “Songsten” is
equally pervasive and chilling.

The final showdown between Troughton’s Doctor and Morris’
possessed Padmasambhava is horribly unnerving, too – never before has our hero
looked so vulnerable, as he is bombarded with the mental force of the Great
Intelligence. His entrance, followed
almost instantly by the cry of pain, is terrifying, and the next image we see
of him is bent over, in agony, trying to reach the throne. Once the group have broken into the Inner
Sanctum, Jamie and Thonmi begin the destruction of the control units. There is another horrifying moment when,
following the destruction of the control sphere and the Yetis, the Great
Intelligence continues to taunt them, intoning that “one stroke of fortune will
not save you”. There’s an incredibly
tense action sequence, with Travers bursting in and shooting at Padmasambhava –
and he catches the bullets! – before Jamie finally saves the day by smashing
the pyramid and destroying the power of the Great Intelligence, as well as the
top of the mountain housing the cave.
Morris’ Padmasambhava is finally freed, and with one final word of
thanks to his “old friend”, he is finally granted the death he has so longed
for.

The final moments of the serial are something of an oddity –
after the introduction of the Yeti, and then the realisation that they are
actually robots under the control of something else, we are then led to believe
that Yeti do in fact exist, and they are the timid creatures Travers said
they were. Of course, the real Yeti are
just as cute and bumbling as their robotic counterparts were, but the sheer
excitement in Watling’s face as he goes careering after them is quite magical.

All told, this is a truly special serial; whilst it may be remembered
by most for the introduction of the second-cuddliest bad guys ever – yes, I’m
looking at you, Mandrels! – it is actually a superbly crafted and intricate
study of the human condition and power of faith. Through an absence of incidental music and
some stellar performances, the resultant serial is a tense, doom-laden
slow-burner, gradually building up to the incredible climactic scenes in the
Sanctum. Haisman and Lincoln crafted
their script with suitable nuance and subtlety, and the direction from Gerald
Blake is wonderful. As always, it is a
tragedy that we have so little of this still existent. The Yeti and the Great Intelligence will be
seen again – and very soon – but first, in Jamie’s words: “Could you not land
us somewhere warmer next time?” – Yes, it’ll be The Ice Warriors!

About Me

Scott Edwards is a teacher of English and Theatre Studies, with a BAHons in English Literature and Film Studies.He is also a self-professed ‘ming-mong’, and is now going to return to some Classic Doctor Who.